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Can Elon Musk Be Weaned Off Government Support? (thehill.com)
mi shares an opinion piece written by Jenny Beth Martin via The Hill: A study published in 2015 by The Los Angeles Times revealed that just three of Musk's ventures -- SolarCity Corp. (which manufactured and installed solar energy systems before its 2016 merger with Tesla Motors Inc.), Tesla Motors Inc. (which manufactures electric vehicles), and Space Exploration Technologies Corp., known as SpaceX (which builds rocket ships) -- had received $4.9 billion in government subsidies to that point in time. By now, Musk's various ventures have sucked well over $5 billion from government coffers. Worse: in order to induce car buyers to spend their money on electric vehicles, the federal government offers a $7,500 rebate on the purchase price. Some states enhance that rebate with rebates of their own. In California, for instance, purchasers of electric vehicles get a state-funded rebate of $2,500 more.
Slashdot reader mi asks: "Why are you and I subsidizing Elon Musk's products and when will his businesses be able to compete on their own?"
Slashdot reader mi asks: "Why are you and I subsidizing Elon Musk's products and when will his businesses be able to compete on their own?"
is an idiot. Many companies receive subsidies from the US Government.
Do Oil companies need approx. $4Billion/year of tax payer dollars? When can we wean them off government support?
I think the terms you are looking for are "graft", "corruption", and "crony capitalism"...
"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
Yes! Why did the government spend hundreds of BILLIONS on concrete pathways all across the fucking country? And hundreds of billions more to build the oil/gasoline infrastructure? My horse got along just fine without all that shit! Fucking morons.
For SpaceX it's even more disingenuous - they counted governmental launch contracts as "subsidies".
Agreed. Author is doing the typical semantics game where they attempt to redefine common vocabulary to make you see just how bad it all is because they aren't contracts for goods and services, but really just SUBSIDIES - big ugly SUBSIDIES. Both left and right play this ridiculous game because they get no traction when they use regular language to describe things that people are pretty OK with. They want to stoke outrage.
Anyway, these launch "subsidies" are saving the government quite a bit of money over the old ways, so I'm okay with these "subsidies".
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
For example, if we look at the burden on consumers from Trump bailouts, it dwarves that of Elon Musk.
At least Musk makes stuff. The Russian comrade just stamps his logo on stuff built by shell companies he lets default on obligations for, and licenses his likeness for a 20-40 percent markup, without actually building anything.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
You would think that 100 years of US Government support that the Oil companies could be weaned off of the billions in special tax and other benefits give them every single year. The benefits should go to companies taking us to the 21st century OFF of oil. Such as Tesla and Elon Musk's other ventures. Oops. DL;DR
Worse: in order to induce car buyers to spend their money on electric vehicles, the federal government offers a $7,500 rebate on the purchase price.
Is that bad? Because not too long ago our national security was at risk since OPEC had us by the balls over a resource that we depended upon but could not produce ourselves. And as gas prices rose and applies economic pressure on everyone it bust bubbles causing a massive financial econopocalypse. The sort that hadn't been seen since the great depression.
We launched TRIllion dollar WARS over this shit.
Last I checked, there was a temporary spike in US oil production as we squeeze the last few drops out of old wells via fracking, and unlocked some oil from shale. Yay technological improvement. But that doesn't change the fact that cars are running on fossil fuels and ultimately this is not sustainable.
So what do we do? We encourage investment into alternatives. Like electric cars. Which can be powered off of grid power which can, in turn, be powered by renewable sources. So we subsidize electric cars. Would you rather we ban ice cars? Add an ice-tax? Tax fuel prices? Because raising fuel prices worked out so well for us last time.
All that said. If a company specifically targets hoovering up government subsidies, that's generally a bad thing. And there WILL come a time when such encouraging subsidies go away. But you have to examine each program on it's merits or flaws rather than on the whole. Everyone likes to bitch about taxes until you start suggesting programs to cut to reduce them.
Also, I'll believe the author is earnest about killing subsidies, I would have expected a mention of the fossil fuel subsidies too, including sweetheart resource extraction deals on federal lands. Or say Ford's still-unpaid bailout loan from the US government. Or ULA's expensive military satellite launch business. It just strikes me as an easy hit piece rather than an honest means to do away with subsidies.
Elon's gone on record several times saying he'll give up subsidies if everyone else gives up theirs.
They're tech companies and this a website that discusses things related to technology. I'm sure there are dozens or hundreds of hit pieces (or just regular pieces espousing the position that governments shouldn't be subsidizing things in general) being written about all of those different companies in different papers, magazines, or websites that are being posted to various web forums that focus on those topics, but if you want to read about them, you'll have to go to those other places.
"Jenny Beth Martin is the co-founder and national coordinator of the Tea Party Patriots". So, I'm assuming she doesn't want any government subsidies for anything at all, and wants to reduce our government down to just doing "mutual defense" of the individual states. She also makes around 15K per month for "strategic consulting" and $272,000 salary as President of said Tea Party Patriots...for a total of over $450,000 a year. That's quite a bit of "tea".
Fake News at its best. The linked OPINION PIECE over at The Hill starts with a false premise -- that companies run by Elon Musk have gotten approximately $5 billion in taxpayer funds -- and runs blindly with it.
Click thru to the original LA Times from May 2015 and you get this bit of clarity:
The figure compiled by The Times comprises a variety of government incentives, including grants, tax breaks, factory construction, discounted loans and environmental credits that Tesla can sell. It also includes tax credits and rebates to buyers of solar panels and electric cars.
Let's take that apart one piece at a time, starting with the easy ones: discounted loans, factory construction, and end-user rebates.
Tesla's discounted loans were loans that were made by the Dept. of Energy only if Tesla could get matching funding from the private sector. They did. And then paid the loans back, plus interest, a full nine years before they were due.
Yes, they paid them back with interest. That isn't "taking taxpayer money". They got it all back plus some. You know, like capitalism.
How about "end user rebates"? Musk doesn't get those, they go to the person -- taxpayer -- purchasing the electric vehicle. You get them on Nissan Leafs and Chevy Volts as well. And they're only around until the manufacturer sells a certain number of vehicles. Claiming them as a "subsidy" for Musk is dishonest.
Factory construction and tax breaks? State-level incentives made by California, New York, and Nevada because factories bring jobs and other revenue. This isn't unique to Musk or any of his companies. States, Counties, and Cities use tax incentives -- rebates, discounts, and waivers -- in order to lure all sorts of businesses, from Walmart to automotive manufacturers. Trying to call out Musk for this as if it is something special given to his companies, again, dishonest.
Environmental tax credits and grants in general are because the pollution created by the fossil fuel industry is horrendous, and isn't something that individuals can deal with on their own. Large companies get their own subsidies by externalizing the environmental costs -- that is, sweeping the filth under the run and not paying to clean up.
Corporations will shit all over everything if it can make them a buck. Individual who need jobs to survive aren't in a position to fight for even the basics -- that is one of the reasons we have governments.
The environmental benefits of switching to electric vehicles and solar/wind power are massive, and greatly outweigh the downsides (when measured against the coal/oil yardstick).
Yes, the government needs to actively encourage clean technologies. Yes, it is in the tax payers best interest to support these sorts of things. There are always people who will value short term profits over long term benefits, so no, the unregulated free market will not handle this better.
Been there (Love Canal, NY & New Jersey in the 1970s), done that (tetra-ethyl lead, freon, asbestos), not going back for some Ayn Rand-worshiping fanatic who failed to study history or learn anything useful from it.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Of all the recipients of corporate welfare, Musk's ventures fall into the better half. He's making some other people look bad, the resentment goes up, and so you get hit pieces like this.